


The Old Ball and Chain and Hairspray

by SquaresAreNotCircles



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: (due to the unwanted power of heteronormativity), Based on a Tumblr Post, Canon-Typical Violence, Established Relationship, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, POV Outsider, the effort danny puts into his hair saves lives every day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 02:54:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20369491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SquaresAreNotCircles/pseuds/SquaresAreNotCircles
Summary: Tall Guy’s partner adds, “Did you get a good look at him?” Will is pretty sure this other man is a Detective, but with the long-sleeved button-up, slacks and leather dress shoes he’s wearing, he looks more like an accountant. An accountant who bench presses tax forms, to be fair, like Captain America was scaled down in height but not in width, but still. The only thing that’s missing is the tie.Or: A witness to a shooting in broad daylight is interviewed by a Detective and a Very Tall Guy. Hair routines become a topic of conversation.





	The Old Ball and Chain and Hairspray

**Author's Note:**

  * For [KatieComma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma/gifts).

> This was written after I encountered [a Tumblr post](https://five-wow.tumblr.com/post/187225192808/telltaleclerk-cowandcalf-telltaleclerk) ([link to the original](https://telltaleclerk.tumblr.com/post/187203638799/i-just-want-someone-to-write-a-mcdanno-one-shot)) by [KatieComma](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma) ([telltaleclerk](https://telltaleclerk.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr)! The concept is all theirs, so all the glory for this idea should go to them. I threw words at it because it was a wonderfully silly prompt, and random civilians having an interaction with the strange force that is Steve-and-Danny is always great, so this is a telling of one of those guys' stories. :D

It all happens a lot faster than Will’s mind can process. One minute, he’s hurrying Jenny along because Peter might not mind but Debra will be pissed if they’re late to the restaurant, and then it’s _bang, bang, bang_ and everyone is screaming and diving for the pavement. Will is numbly worried about his clean polo shirt until he realizes it’s going to be soaked through with fear sweat anyway. 

Within minutes after it’s all done, the entire street is crawling with first responders. A few parked cars over, some poor schmuck is being covered up with a white sheet.

Will feels a twinge of sympathy, but mostly he’s relieved that it’s not Jenny, who is having one of the paramedics look at the cut in her hand from when she hit the ground. Will stays with her for a moment, to make sure she’s alright, and then wanders off because she tells him to stop hovering and he’s totally fine and doesn’t need a doctor, but he thinks he might need a wall to lean against. Just so he doesn’t fall over. No biggie.

He ends up slouched against the brick next to a giant window display full of hats, so he has a pretty good view of Five-0 arriving on scene and taking over the reins of the proceedings. He’s looking at things closer to him, watching his own hand shake with a sense of abstract fascination, when two of the Five-0’ers come over to talk to him. They do introduce themselves, but Will’s mind is reeling so badly that their names go in one ear, get sucked up in a tornado of _holy shit, I almost died_ and are pushed out the other ear. 

“Sir?” the tall guy asks, frowning a bit. He sounds like it might not have been the first time he said it.

Will blinks at him. He thinks this guy introduced himself as something that Will is fairly sure is not a rank with the HPD, and maybe his last name started with Mac? He shakes his head, which helps to clear it. “I’m sorry, I’m just a little- I almost died, you know.” Saying it out loud makes it feel very real. “There were-” He throws his hands around in an attempt to imitate bullets whizzing through the air. “Whoosh,” he says, though that wasn’t really the sound it made. “But I’m fine now. How can I help?”

McTall Guy gives him an encouraging nod. “Anything you can tell us about the shooter?” 

Tall Guy’s partner adds, “Did you get a good look at him?” Will is pretty sure this other man is a Detective, but with the long-sleeved button-up, slacks and leather dress shoes he’s wearing, he looks more like an accountant. An accountant who bench presses tax forms, to be fair, like Captain America was scaled down in height but not in width, but still. The only thing that’s missing is the tie. 

Will smiles a little at the thought of anyone wearing a tie in Hawaii. “Uh, not really,” he says, in response to the question. “We – my wife and I, that is – we just heard the shots and we ducked down. Sorry.”

“That’s alright,” Tall Guy says. He exchanges a look with Detective Accountant, and Will can feel that they’re on the verge of thanking him for his time and moving on, but he’s not ready for them to leave yet. Their combined height and muscley-ness, not the mention the guns and badges strapped to their belts, are a very reassuring thing to have between himself and the rest of the world right now.

“It’s crazy, really,” he says, not really knowing what’s so crazy, until his eyes find the back of Jenny’s head, where she’s now talking to police too. That’s an easy topic handed to him on a silver platter, and one that two manly law enforcement guys are sure to understand. “I kept hurrying my wife along, because she takes ages in the bathroom, you know, with the makeup and the hair. You know how it is, right?” 

Tall Guy throws another quick look at Detective Accountant, who just rolls his eyes. “Yeah,” Tall Guy says. He sounds amused, which is more like the response Will was hoping for. Guy like that, he probably has a woman at home who is a former model, at the very least. Or maybe a girl who yells at him but in that cool way, where you know she’s got spirit, which she probably has because she also does something badass for a living, and she really knows how to handle a gun. “I know how it is.”

“Of course you do.” He’s aware he’s rambling a little, just to keep their attention, but it’s working. “So my wife, right, she was taking her sweet time and I kept telling her she really didn’t need another layer of whatever she was spraying in her hair because she looked beautiful just the way she was, but she wasn’t listening to me, you know? She thinks she knows best. You know that, too.”

Tall Guy nods with a commiserating expression. Detective Accountant is looking more exasperated by the second. 

“But then, right, as we were here, walking from our car to the restaurant where we’re supposed to meet some old friends who are in Hawaii for a visit, there was suddenly all of this happening, with the shooting and all, and if she’d listened to me just once as I was begging her to be done with her hair already, then we would’ve been a little ahead in the street of where we actually were, and we probably would’ve gotten caught up in the fire.” He laughs a little. “So imagine if she’d actually listened to me, right?”

“Yeah,” Tall Guy says. “Sounds like you lucked out. You found the one time your partner’s grooming habits were a plus.”

Detective Accountant scoffs. “Yes, because the rest of the time it’s a terrible hardship to be walking around with someone who actually looks good.”

Tall Guy must be married to Detective Accountant’s sister, or something, with the way Detective Accountant keeps sticking up for Tall Guy’s wife. It’s good of him to do that. Will can appreciate a man who stands up for his family.

Tall Guy ignores Detective Accountant, like they’ve had this argument before. “Does yours use mousse and three different types of combs, too?”

Will has a hunch that Tall Guy is probably not talking about chocolate mousse, but he’s still adjusting to the fact that something so ridiculous as a honey hair mask exist, which he learned about last month the hard way when their entire bathroom was sticky. He doesn’t think he’s ready to discover what other food items people are using as beauty products, so he doesn’t ask. “I think she has at least four brushes, if not more. And always with the hair dryer, after every shower, like that thing doesn’t cost a fortune with how much energy it sucks up.”

“Hey.” Detective Accountant is frowning deeply as he runs a hand over his hair, which is kind of combed back. His sister’s probably a blonde, too. “Important things deserve to be done well, and that takes time.”

Tall Guy smirks. “Oh sure, this is vital stuff. Where would this world be without hairspray?”

Detective Accountant waves a superior hand. “Go ahead, laugh it up. We both know you wouldn’t be able to get _any_ work done, you’d be so distracted.” 

Huh. He seems awfully convinced of his sister’s seductive powers, to a possibly slightly worrying degree.

Tall Guy opens his mouth, but Detective Accountant shoves a warning finger in his direction and cuts him off. “Buddy, I’d shut up now if you don’t want to sleep on the couch tonight.”

“Ouch,” Will says, because he felt that one. “That’s harsh, man. You’d rat him out to his wife?”

Will doesn’t really understand what happens next. Tall Guy’s eyebrows shoot up and then he starts grinning, wildly, while Detective Accountant first leans in and then rears back, his whole body doing an interpretive dance of indignant disbelief. “His _wife_? Oh, that’s nice. That’s really nice.”

Tall Guy’s face is suddenly all Boy Scout seriousness as he puts a hand over his heart. “I agree, Danno. It’s very nice. I think I’d make a great husband.”

Detective Accountant seems to give up at that. He turns away, but he throws up his hands even as he’s doing it. “You know what you’re great at, Steven? Making an idiot of yourself.”

Tall Guy – Steven – gives Will one last grin and nod of thanks before he chases after Danno, whatever kind of name that might be. With a sense of bafflement, Will watches them duck under the crime scene tape and disappear in the hustle and bustle of HPD folks doing their jobs, still bickering, it seems. 

So apparently Tall Guy isn’t married yet? That’s gotta be it.

Will realizes that he’s not even leaning against the hat store anymore. The diversion was invigorating in the way that it took his mind off things and put an end to the shaking of his limbs, so he pushes off from the wall and locates Jenny. She seems to be just finishing up with the woman she was talking to, who also has a Five-0 badge at her hip. Will would think she might be the wife, because her black hair looks big and shiny enough that it probably takes some work, knowing how much effort Jenny puts into something that looks so natural and easy, except there is no way this Five-0 woman is Detective Accountant’s sister. Not unless one of them was adopted, anyway.

“Detective Kalakaua,” the woman says, after Jenny introduces Will to her. “Have you been questioned yet?”

“Yeah.” He spots Tall Guy and Detective Accountant in the middle of the street. They’re not talking to another witness and don’t really seem to be doing anything productive, because when he looks over, Tall Guy is trying to touch a finger to Detective Accountant’s hair with a shit-eating grin, while Detective Accountant bats him away in a manner that for some reason brings them closer into each other’s personal space, instead of the other way around. Will points at them. “By those two.”

“What’s up with them?” Jenny asks. It’s validating, because it means she’s picked up on some kind of vibe too, and it’s not just Will thinking they’re a little weird. Maybe that’s just what happens when you work with your brother-in-law.

Detective Kalakaua clicks her pen and smiles a polite smile full of secrets. “Oh, don’t even ask.”

*

Eight months later, when he sees the marriage announcement in the morning paper – Lieutenant Commander Steven J. McGarrett and Detective Sergeant Daniel D. Williams – Will thinks nothing of it. It’s a sign of progress, he supposes, that even military gay folks now feel secure enough to tie the knot. In an abstract way, that’s kind of neat.

Then Jenny, who has an annoying yet endearing habit of reading upside down, beams at him across the table and says, “Isn’t it great that those two from Five-0 are getting hitched? I could just tell they were made for each other when we saw them in person after that shooting.”

The good news is that Will finally puts two and two together, then. He’s not _willfully_ blind. 

The bad news is that they have to throw out two pages of the morning paper because there are half-chewed bits of cereal stuck to them in a distinct _oh shit_ spray pattern.

**Author's Note:**

> Did I sneak in just a hint of Steve proposing in a terrible way, one of my favorite tropes for these two? Mayyybe. Either way, thank you for reading! Comments are lovely and make me very happy. ❤
> 
> I'm on Tumblr as [itwoodbeprefect](https://itwoodbeprefect.tumblr.com), or with my exclusively H50 sideblog as [five-wow](https://five-wow.tumblr.com). You can find the lovely [telltaleclerk](https://telltaleclerk.tumblr.com/), whose prompt this was, on Tumblr too!


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